Standage case builds up

THE jury in a long-running double-murder trial involving killings 14 years apart has been told the prosecution will prove guilt in the largely circumstantial case “brick by brick”.

Stephen Roy Standage has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Ronald Frederick Jarvis, 37, at Nugent in July 1992, and John Lewis Thorn, 59, at Lake Leake in August 2006.

Yesterday, on the first day of what are expected to be long closing addresses by the prosecution and defence, Acting Direc­tor of Public Prosecutions Daryl Coates SC drew attention to what he described as the striking similarities in circumstances of each case.

Mr Coates said while some of the evidence was direct evidence, much of it is would be circumstantial.

He said Mr Jarvis and then Mr Thorn more than a decade later had been shot in remote bush locations, their bodies dragged through scrub ­before being covered in saplings and both were found without their wallets.

Further, Mr Coates said, the accused had drug relationships with both, owed them money and was the last to see each of them alive.

“What the Crown is saying is these two cases are very similar and very rare,” he said.

Mr Coates said in each case experienced officers had been at pains to keep an open mind about what had happened, inter­viewing people of interest across the state, taking DNA samples, checking phone and bank records and investigating all manner of rumours.

He said after all that, police had found no evidence anybody other than Mr Standage was involved in the killings.

In the case of Mr Jarvis, Mr Coates said the fact police found no evidence of disturbance at his house, his car was in the driveway packed for a fishing trip and there were no signs of a struggle suggested the victim had gone voluntarily with his killer to Nugent.

He suggested that because the killings were obviously deliberate, the jury should not consider an alternative verdict of manslaughter.

“The real issue for you to decide is whether the accused committed each murder,” he said.

Mr Coates also raised evidence from an undercover police sting during which Mr Standage was flown to Melbourne to join in the activities of a fake mainland crime gang.

He said comments made to police officers posing as gang members could only be taken as admissions of murder.

And not once had Mr Standage mentioned his “fanciful theory” of Tasmanian police being responsible for Mr Jarvis’s killing, he said.